That was one of the most expected races.
The goal of Michael Phelps was winning eight gold medals,
more medals than Spitz did in 1972.
(FRENETIC RELAY BEIJING 2008 OLYMPIC GAMES)
(MEN'S 4X100 METRES FREESTYLE RELAY FINAL
BEIJING NATIONAL AQUATICS CENTRE 11TH AUGUST 2008)
Always exciting at the Olympics and this should be a good one.
Finals of the men's four by 100 freestyle relay.
The Americans have to win golden here
if Phelps is to keep his hopes alive
of surpassing Mark Spitz.
And there is the French team there. They are the favourites
and they have been doing some talking.
Alain Bernard,
their world-record holder in the hundred free earlier,
told a newspaper, "Well, what about the Americans?
We're going to smash them. That's what we came here for."
(FREDERICK BOUSQUET SILVER MEDAL - FRANCE)
Hello?
Under no circumstances had we collectively
achieved a great race...
..that allowed us
to claim to be the favourites.
It's the other players in swimming,
managers, technical staff, journalists, obviously,
who created
a story upstream of this race.
It added an enormous weight on the basic goal of the team.
If we wish to imagine it so, we were
in the arena of the Coliseum, in the corridors,
and we were ready as gladiators to go out and give our lives.
Phelps going first.
Amaury Leveaux. France leads it off.
Look at Eamon Sullivan from Australia though!
Wow, he's out!
Oh, my goodness! 22.48!
Look at the world record line.
Way ahead of it is a number of swimmers!
(ALAIN BERNARD SILVER MEDAL - FRANCE)
Hello?
Leveaux made almost his best time at the start of the relay.
After him Fabien Gilot made
a very good relay.
He overtook all the competitors and arrived in first position
and behind him Frédérick Bousquet also swam very well.
And I tried to make the best possible race.
There was a moment, when I made the turn to the 50m,
I realised during the turn that I was in the lead
and I passed the Australian and the American.
And then I say to myself, "Fred, you have to go on,
you don't have to crack, you have to get even more ahead
to ensure victory when you give the relay to Alain."
But I see that I give the relay to Alain
almost 90 hundredths ahead.
That means that I give him
the relay with 1.5 metres ahead.
Nothing can happen, nothing can happen to us.
We're going to be Olympic champions.
I left extremely fast the first 50 metres.
After that, I did not look
at Jason Lezak for the remaining 50 metres
because I was breathing all four movements
on the right side and he was on my left.
But the last metres I felt
his presence in my field of vision
and there it became really complicated.
Lezak is closing a little bit on Bernard.
Can the veteran chase him down and pull off a shocker here?
Well, there's no gap, it is tight enough!
Bernard is losing some ground. Here comes Lezak!
Unbelievable at the end! He's done it!
The US has done it! They've done it!
Phelps' hopes alive!
I realised when Alain was at 75 metres,
when he has 25 metres ahead.
I began to realise
that we were losing the race.
And I saw him completely stick to the line,
I saw the American who was going up in the race,
totally surfing
and I told myself that too many errors were committed
and that we wouldn't get out of this that well.
The last moments after touching the wall,
when I realised that we were not first,
I had a feeling of enormous disappointment
regarding my team-mates
who swam really well before me.
I felt the responsibility was all mine.
I felt that failure and disappointment.
And for eight hundredths one does not win.
And I do not want to talk about defeat.
I do not want to say that we lost the title.
I just say we did not win,
we were not capable of winning that day.
46.06 split for Lezak!
What a clutch fast swim when they needed it!
Who's talking now?
Stunned.
I think they need to use
another word other than "smash."
Wow!
That might be the most incredible relay split
I've ever seen in my entire life.
46 flat!
At that point, I was more concerned about Alain,
he was overcome.
He's not out of the water yet,
he's putting his head in his hands
and he starts crying saying that it's all his fault.
So I care much more about the condition
and behaviour and moral condition
of Alain, my team-mate,
than about the celebration of others.
So it was true that Jason Lezak
took advantage of my wave
when I left extremely fast the first 50 metres.
He sticks to the line rope, he sticks on the side.
And besides, he sticks to the side
of the American relayer.
Then Jason Lezak with all the lucidity,
all his intelligence and all his experience,
in just a move he also sticks to the line,
being a slight distance from Alain.
He takes his wave
and uses advantage of the speed that Alain creates for him,
in turn surfing this wave.
This allows him to save energy
and place an acceleration in the last 15 metres,
when Alain is cracking physically.
(CAMILLO CAMETTI CHAIRMAN FINA MEDIA COMMITTEE)
Lezak built up a motivation
from the previous Olympics, of course.
But also he was motivated
by Michael Phelps winning eight gold medals.
And he did not want to be blamed
for not letting Michael Phelps
stay on course for his goal.
Actually, it was absolutely insane.
It was the fastest relay split ever.
For me, the reason we did not win
is to say that the coaches
made the decision to change the order of the relay
an hour and a half before the final of this relay.
This change supposed a peak of stress for everyone
but especially for Frédérick Bousquet and myself
because suddenly starting in third and fourth position
in a relay is not the same.
They messed up the race.
How could they destabilise us in such way?
We didn't understand and we were...
..we were lost, really.
It's been eight years since it happened
and when I speak of it,
I still have the same emotions that stand out
because, for me, they spoiled our moment.
And it is difficult, even today, to talk about it again.
(THE FRENCH GOT THEIR REVENGE FOUR YEARS LATER,
BEATING THE AMERICANS FOR GOLD.)
(TWO DAYS AFTER THIS RACE, ALAIN BERNARD WON GOLD
IN THE 100 METRES FREESTYLE, LEAVING LEZAK IN THIRD.)
(BERNARD RETIRED FROM SWIMMING IN 2012.
HE WAS INDUCTED IN THE INTERNATIONAL SWIMMING
HALL OF FAME AS THE CLASS OF 2017.)
(ON THE LINE)